July 20, 2009, MediaPost — Between the U.S. and Canada, more than 20% of commercial, permission-based email doesn't reach the inboxes of intended subscribers, according to new data from email marketing and list management firm Return Path.
There’s a lot of debate in the blogosphere and elsewhere these days regarding the efficacy of different fundraising and marketing channels. It goes something like this: “Is direct mail dying?” “Will social media kill e-mail?” “Will mobile rule the marketing roost?” “Should I tweet … or blog?”
Part 4 of the NTEN webinar series — Evaluating Your Email Marketing Efforts for Success! — featured Lauren Miller and David Leichtman, senior strategist and director of e-mail programs, and director of analytics and technology, respectively, for Blue State Digital, the firm highly recognized for its work on President Obama's campaign, sharing tips on evaluating e-mail marketing efforts.
In Part 3 of the NTEN four-part series of seminars — Storytelling Via Email — Heather Fignar, a managing partner with NPAdvisors, began by going over her top three "four-letter words" of e-mail marketing: blast, monthly and newsletter.
In Part 2 of the NTEN webinar series — Tactics for Finding More Online Donors, Members and Advocates: When Organic List Building Tactics Aren’t Enough — presenter Alia McKee, principal, Sea Change Strategies, discussed a few tactics organizations can use to get offline donors online.
Beginning in mid-March, NTEN presented a seminar a week in a four-part series on improving results from e-mail campaigns. Topics included getting to know online stakeholders; finding more online donors, members and advocates; storytelling via e-mail; and evaluating e-mail marketing efforts.
This article focuses on Part 1: Getting to Know Your Online Stakeholders — Who Are They and What Do They Want From You? (See the other features in this edition of Giving 2.0 for more on other parts of the series.)
Sure, raising money online is a bit more
complicated than renting a mailing list and testing various packages on the names to see what works and what doesn’t. For starters, in the spam-challenged online world, you need donors’ permission to continue communicating with them. And to be sure, your organization can raise serious cash online without sending a single e-mail, particularly during December when many donors seek you out. Heck, you can even raise a few dollars (but only a few) on Facebook these days.
But eliminate all the jargon and the steady
stream of innovative ideas, and you’ll find that acquiring donors online boils down to five key steps.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, April 14, 2009 — VerticalResponse, Inc. (www.verticalresponse.com), a leading provider of on-demand email marketing, surveys and direct mail solutions, today announced that VerticalResponse for Non-Profits has provided more than 25,000,000 free emails to non-profits ranging from national organizations to local schools, saving the organizations millions of dollars in materials costs, postage, and cutting paper waste drastically to further the company's commitment to the environment.
In a free webinar last month titled "It's All About the List! How to Grow and Cultivate Your Most Valuable Online Asset" sponsored by Network for Good, Justin Perkins, director of nonprofit marketing strategy at Care2, an online community that allows people to sign and send petitions and take a variety of actions on behalf of nonprofit organizations, offered advice to charities interested in building their e-mail lists.
Email newsletters to supporters are a waste of time and effort and should be ditched by charities and NGOs, according to Barack Obama's digital strategist.
